SINGAPORE - Commuters experienced delays on the North East Line (NEL) on Tuesday (Oct 3) due to a train fault.

In a tweet at 1.31pm, train operator SBS Transit said additional travel time of about 15 minutes may be expected.

Free bus rides were made available at certain bus stops near the affected stations, said SBS Transit in a separate tweet six minutes later.

In an update at around 2pm, SBS Transit said that there is no train service between Punggol and Buangkok stations.

Five minutes later, the train operator said NEL service towards HarbourFront station is delayed, and that commuters may experience an additional 20 minutes of travelling time.

At 2.19pm, SBS Transit tweeted that train service on NEL had resumed and was back to regular service.

Responding to queries for The Straits Times, Ms Tammy Tan, SBS Transit's senior vice-president of corporate communications, said the train fault affected services on the NEL for about an hour.

A train was approaching Sengkang Station in the direction of HarbourFront when it stalled, which caused a delay and resulted in an additional travel time of between 15 and 20 minutes for commuters on the line, said Ms Tan.

Subsequently, as the defective train was being pushed out of the line, there was no train service between Punggol and Buangkok. Full service resumed at about 2.16pm, added Ms Tan.

"We apologise to affected commuters for the inconvenience caused. Meanwhile, we are investigating the cause of the train fault."

The Ministry of Education, in a Facebook post at 2pm on Tuesday, advised exam candidates affected by the train service delay to inform their school as soon as possible and said they did not have to get an excuse letter from the train station.

Responding to queries from The Straits Times, a spokesman for the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board said fewer than 15 candidates sitting for the GCE N(A)-level Mathematics Syllabus A examination had reported late due to the disruption on the NEL.

"They were given time to rest upon reaching their examination centre before taking their examination, and were given the full duration for their examination," she said. The GCE O-level Foreign Languages oral examination was also held on Tuesday, but no candidate sitting for it was affected.